Broadway Aglow With `Starlight`

May 03, 1987|By Howard Reich.

`Starlight Express,`` the $8 million Andrew Lloyd Webber musical that fizzled with New York critics, has been an unqualified hit with N.Y. audiences.

In fact, its promoters recently took out a full-page ad in Variety, stating that the musical earned $606,081 for the week ended April 19, giving the show ``the all-time highest weekly gross in Broadway history.``

Itzhak Perlman may have been wearing a dress and blond wig, but the entertainment wasn`t entirely frivolous when several of the world`s leading violinists gathered recently in New York to honor violin teacher Dorothy DeLay for her 70th birthday.

DeLay--whose students have included Perlman, Shlomo Mintz, Nadja Salerno- Sonnenberg and other distinguished artists--was being saluted as one of the world`s foremost instructors in a most elusive art.

``Among the female teachers of this male-dominated profession,`` said Perlman`s wife, Toby, to the New York Times, ``I can only compare her to Rosina Lhevinne (the pianist who taught at the Juilliard School for decades). And among the Americans--speaking only of violin teachers--nobody.``

The evening also included violin performances, words of praise and a general feeling of surprise for the honoree.

Said Toby Perlman before the event, ``She (DeLay) asked me if this was a wedding.``

MORE POPULAR THAN LINCOLN MEMORIAL?

Banjo-picker/folk singer Stephen Wade, whose one-man show had a 57-week run several years ago in Chicago, recently completed his sixth year performing in the Old Vat Room of the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.; his show thus becomes the longest-running entertainment in the capital`s history.

``Among the most enduring Washington institutions,`` wrote David Richards of the Washington Post, ``the Lincoln Memorial, the White House, the inaugural parade--it will soon be necessary to include Stephen Wade, who tells tales, does jigs and plucks a variety of banjos in his one-man show.``

ALL ABOARD THE SOVIET EXPRESS

Ever since Vladimir Horowitz gained international attention performing a piano recital in Moscow last year, America`s classical musicians have been practically tripping over one another trying to climb aboard the bandwagon headed for the USSR.

The Pittsburgh and Baltimore orchestras recently trumpeted plans for USSR tours this spring, and now comes word that ``Andrew Litton has become the first American to lead the Moscow USSR State Symphony Orchestra since the resumption of cultural ties between the two countries,`` according to his publicists.